[FAQ]

Hey,

I’ve been trying to get smarter with my channel’s analytics and I found the “When your viewers are on YouTube” chart in the Audience tab. It’s cool to see the days and times my audience is most active—for me, it’s mostly evenings and weekends, which makes sense.

What I’m not sure about is how to actually use this data. Should I be scheduling my uploads for right when the bars are darkest? Or maybe an hour before? I’m also wondering if it’s a good guide for timing a live stream.

I want to be more strategic with my upload schedule, so I’m curious to hear how you all use this specific chart to make decisions for your channels.

[Jeff Bullas]

That’s a smart piece of data to focus on.

Quick Answer: This graph is your best guide for timing your content. The standard strategy is to publish your videos one to two hours before the peak viewing times indicated on the chart.

Effectively using this data format is all about giving your various content formats the strongest possible launch velocity.

This chart is a powerful data format that shows you when your specific audience is most active, and you should use it to schedule all of your content. Firstly, for your primary video format, publishing an hour or two before the darkest purple bars appear gives YouTube’s systems time to index your video and prepare it for distribution just as your viewers are starting to arrive on the platform. Secondly, this data is even more critical for a live stream format, where you should aim to go live precisely as those peak hours begin to maximise your potential for concurrent viewership. Finally, don’t neglect your text formats; timing your Community Tab posts to coincide with these high-traffic periods will ensure they get the most immediate engagement from your most active subscribers, boosting their visibility.

Cheers,

Jeff

[Author]

Posts